the last time the house republicans played political games with the debt ceiling, august 20 11, our economy produced the lowest job growth in three years. during that two-month period, the dow jones plummeted 2,000 points including one of its worst single day drops in history, 635 points on, on august 8. s&p downgrade the u.s. credit rating for the first time in history. leading republicans in june, 2011, criticized the notion of a short-term debt ceiling increase as providing a lack of certainty. the majority leader said, i quote, we feel very strongly that one of the reasons we continue to see an ailing economy is that people have very little confidence, have very little senchity in terms of where we are headed, end of quote. and our ways and means chairman echoed that feeng only days later, saying aut the prospect of a short-term debt ceiling increase, in quote, it does not give you certainty. this bill does not give certainty but uncertainty. the action we took new year's day to avoid the fiscal cliff brought our total deficit reduction over the past two years to $2.5 trillion. what's m